Cisco Firepower 4100 Series vs. SonicWall NSA Series

When we are asked by local partners which security equipment we use we always recommend our Cisco security products. The Firepower firewall is no exception and we can easily recommend this to others who need a fast, secure, and well built system that integrates well with all your existing hardware and software.

Incentivized

This is a higher-end firewall, built for a medium to large business. It handles traffic and scanning and protection well but it would be a bit of a budget-buster and probably overkill for a small to (barely) medium sized business. SonicWall makes SoHo devices for those use cases and they would be more appropriate.

Incentivized

• Packet filtering
• Great vpn client
• Integrates correctly with other vendors

Incentivized

• Relatively inexpensive compared to some of the higher-end products, like Palo Alto Networks.
• Easy to set up, as the SonicWall NSA interface is consistent across all models.

Incentivized

• Too much time to deploy changes
• When there are a lot of entries in the ldap mapping the device runs slow
• You can not make config changes via CLI, only via GUI

Incentivized

• Ideal with smaller businesses. Would have to examine for more complex needs of larger businesses.
• Scalability might be an issue for super large organizations.

It not easy to understand the different features it offers. Sometimes you need to spend a couple of minutes to implement a change or even open a ticket with cisco tac to figure it out. Once support is on the phone with you they know how to resolve problems. But it's not an intuitive tool

Incentivized

There is room for improvement when it comes to learning the UI, but the UI is overall pretty good. It doesn't take long to learn if you are famaliar with firewalls.

Incentivized

Most of the time, calling SonicWall NSA Support, you get an expert who can help resolve your issues. RMAs are pretty easy once they determine there is an issue with the hardware. Support is available 24x7, which makes emergency calls easy. The only downside is the support engineers may have thick accents; however, their expertise more than makes up for any language barriers.

Incentivized

As I mentioned before, the Fortigates have better failover. I think the Cisco interface is easier to use that that of the FortiGate. My only criticism would be that with multiple CLIs, it can get a bit confusing when you are trying to configure something or troubleshoot from the CLI.

We compared the FortiGate to Sonicwall and continued with Sonicwall as we were a mid-size school where the Sonicwall was performing adequately, and the learning curve was steep to switch platforms. The Sonicwall offered everything the FortiGate did, and was not as costly, both in the appliance and in licensing.

Incentivized

• Very stable and does not cause major interruption.
• Supports most of the business requirements.
• Enhance security, risk and compliance.

• Was affordable, allowing for advanced routing and security.
• Enabled us to build VPNs without purchasing additional services
• Was simple enough to manage in house without external support.

Incentivized